Segments in this Video

Feelings About Eternity(02:11)

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Chakrabarty's precociousness in social science made him feel superior to his parents and India's Hinduism until performing funeral rites for his father, in community with others performing the same ritual, gave him a new feeling.

Humans as Geological Agents(02:14)

Global warming shakes up social scientists' assumptions, showing humans are geological agents- their environmental impact is not just biological. Thinkers have long separated natural and human history.

Science, Humanities and Global Warming(02:09)

Climate science has led to breaches in the wall between science and the humanities. Scientists have considered the ethical implications of global warming.

Conversation between Natural and Political Science(02:55)

A climate scientist believes politics is short-term in nature and cannot solve climate change, an argument similar to Utopian critiques of democracy. A political scientist has argued that many political models assume infinite growth.

Continued Science-Humanities Divide(01:06)

Despite the emerging conversation over climate change, science and the humanities will remain different. Scientists will tell us what a human being is, but humanities will tell us about the experience of being human.

Climate Change and Emotional Appeal(01:11)

Impacts of climate change more than two generations out naturally appeal to cognition, not emotion. Climate scientists are trying to turn the issue into an emotional one.

Rethinking Political Possibilities(02:19)

Climate crisis calls for a new kind of politics where geological imagination influences political imagination. Standard political and economic considerations assume there is always a substitute, but there is none for the ocean.

Description

It is now more than 50 years since the British novelist and scientist C. P. Snow first described a chasm between literary intellectuals and scientists, instigating decades of debate on the existence of the “two cultures” and the possibility of a “third culture," a group that could bridge the gap between scientists and humanists. In this video lecture from the 2009 Falling Walls Conference, Dipesh Chakrabarty, historian and editor of the literary publication Critical Inquiry, attempts to forge that bridge by examining the scientific axiom that humans are now to be regarded as a major geological force on our planet. Analyzing scientific theories of anthropogenic climate change can spur discussions about our conceptions of history and thus end a period of unnecessary fence building between the disciplines. In a time of globalization, isn’t it more important, while acknowledging differences, to pursue an orchestrated continuing effort to discover and increase human knowledge? (14 minutes)